Claudia Wohlatz

Barriers to Cultural Change in Organisations Claudia Wohlatz

Essay from the year 2014 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: 1,0, University of Applied Sciences Riedlingen, language: English, abstract: The intent of this essay is to describe the concept of cultural change, especially focussing on typical barriers to cultural change in organisations and how they can be overcome! Additionally these barriers and possible solutions will be illustrated using an example from the workplace, company, sports club etc. Often we hear our culture needs to be changed. But why is cultural change necessary, which difficulties are met and how can it be overcome? Nowadays we live and work in an environment of discontinuous change processes caused by varied reasons like, for example external market influences as in different strategies of competitors, changes of demands and structures of important customers or benchmark results, but also for internal company influences. This means a cultural change is necessary since without cultural change it is not possible to achieve successful strategic change. However a cultural change is always combined with fears and doubts of the individual. People resist change because the work culture drives them or allows them to. Therefore it is crucial and important to know which barriers to cultural change can occur and what has to be considered and carried out to make cultural change successful. In the first chapter of this essay this topic is introduced, but it is also supposed to rationalise why cultural change affects and how cultural changes can be handled. The second chapter describes what organisational culture and cultural change in organisation means. Furthermore the focus will be on defining the barriers to cultural changes and how they can be solved. The definition of the barriers and success factors will be the base for further discussion in chapter 3 using an example from a company experience. The essay will finish with a conclusion in chapter 4.